


A Pinch of Salt

by captainkatieb



Series: The Tumblr Ficlets [1]
Category: Actor RPF, Star Trek RPF
Genre: Domestic, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-02
Updated: 2016-05-02
Packaged: 2018-06-05 22:14:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6725581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainkatieb/pseuds/captainkatieb
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is why Chris isn't left unsupervised in the kitchen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Pinch of Salt

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



> For [illneverstopsayingyourname](http://illneverstopsayingyourname.tumblr.com) who asked for Pinto cooking.

There’s a faint burnt toast smell when Zach opens the front door. He pauses on the doorstep, sniffing the air. He steps inside and kicks the door closed, dropping his keys down onto the side table.

“Chris?”

“Yep?” comes the shouted reply.

“Have you set my house on fire?”

“Psh Zach, have a little faith!” Chris says.

“Then why does it smell of smoke?” Zach shot back.

Noah comes running around the corner, skidding slightly and coming to rest in front of Zach, tail wagging.

“It does not,” Chris says as he appears around the corner. He’s wearing an apron and has a wooden spoon in his hand. His hair is a mess and he has a crazed grin on his face. His hair is definitely on the side of scruffy and there is a white mark across his face that looks to be like flour.

“Chris?” Zach asks carefully, standing up from where he was patting Noah.

“Yeah?”

“You okay?”

“Oh, yeah, I’m great!” he says grinning. He glances back into the kitchen and grimaces slightly.

“You need help?” Zach asks, raising an eyebrow.

“No!” Chris shouts, panicked. “No,” he repeats holding a hand out. “It’s fine, like, totally fine. You should just, go into the front room, or something.”

“Christopher,” Zach says sternly.

“No Quintos allowed,” Chris says, before dashing back inside the kitchen.

Zach could hear Chris opening and closing the oven and various other draws being rattled. He had no idea what to expect. He wandered into the living room.

Oh no.

There was paper everywhere. Notebooks were open and strewn around, there were piles of books taken off the shelf and placed in random stacks. Zach stared, mouth hanging open slightly. He’d heard Chris joke about his moods that he got into sometimes, but he had yet to witness it first hand. He prays for the state of his kitchen. He just knows he is going to regret giving Chris a key.

“Can I ask why you have decided my living room is the place to…I don’t even know what this is?” Zach calls.

“No.”

He’s at a loss. He actually doesn’t know what to make of any of this. He looks down forlornly at the bottle of red still clutched in his hand and thinks of the leftover pasta he was looking forward to having.

Zach sighs and delicately picks his way across the room, shifting a pile of what look like scripts before sitting down. He wonders where Noah got too. Knowing Noah, he’s taking cover under Zach’s bed.

It goes suspiciously quiet in the kitchen.

Zach’s trying to decide how long he should wait before going to investigate. Before he can make up his mind, Chris appears. He’s taken the apron off and has smoothed down his hair somewhat.

“Uh, I’m done now. Where do you want to eat?” Chris asks.

Zach shrugs. “In all honesty, I don’t mind. Better question, will it be edible, Pine?”

“I’m a grown-ass man Zachary. Believe it or not, I learnt how to cook,” Chris says, rolling his eyes.

“I’m just checking!”

“Asshole. I’ll bring it out.”

Chris disappears for a moment, reappearing with two plates in his hands. He walks over and sets them down on the coffee table, before disappearing again. This time, he returns with two wine glasses and a board. There’s what looks to be freshly made garlic bread on top.

“Chris, did you…make garlic bread? From scratch?” Zach asks, shocked.

“Uh, yeah,” Chris replies, holding out a plate to Zach. “And pasta. That’s so much harder then it looks.”

“That explains the flour,” Zach murmurs, still at a bit of a loss.

He’s made pasta from scratch. It’s not exactly an easy thing to do. It takes a long amount of time.

“Flour?” Chris asks.

“Nevermind,” Zach says, shaking his head. He takes the plate and offered fork. “This actually looks delicious.”

“I told you to have faith,” Chris says, smiling.

It was delicious. They ate slowly, Chris asking Zach about his day. Zach was no closer to working out the reason behind Chris’ sudden desire to prove his kitchen skills, but he decided to let it go for now. His day was full of meetings, and it was actually nice to come home to company and a hot meal. He could get used to this.

He took Chris’ empty plate when they were both finished and headed to the kitchen.

“Ohhh no, no you don’t have to, I totally have this,” Chris says, trying to grab the plates off him.

He stepped inside the kitchen and stopped, Chris running into him.

“Ooph, dude what…oh. Yeah. Oops,” Chris says, sheepishly. He moved around Zach and reaches up to run a hand through his head. “I can totally fix this.”

To say it looked like a disaster zone would have been an understatement. There were multiple pots and pans in Zach’s sink. There was flour over the bench, along with the majority of the contents of Zach’s cupboard.

“Christopher Whitelaw Pine.”

“I told you not to go into the kitchen, but no, you wouldn’t listen to me,” Chris starts.

“That’s because I didn’t expect my kitchen to look like world war three was being decided by the salt and flour!” Zach exclaims.

“Totally worth it though,” Chris says.

“You owe me.”

“What? Why? I just made you dinner!” Chris replies, indignant.

“For the fact I’m going to clean this up. You.” Zach shakes his head. He can’t stay mad at Chris. He wasn’t even really mad to begin with. “Just fix the other room, okay?”

Chris looks at him for a moment.

“Don’t open the fridge.”

_“Chris!”_

**Author's Note:**

> As always, there are more ficlets and fic snippets over on [my tumblr](http://captainkatieb.tumblr.com).


End file.
